Introduction
Social networking sites are online sites through which people build social relations. These sites allow people to share interests, activities, photos, ideas and events within the network. Through these sites, people can interact via e-mail and instant messaging. Some of the most popular social networking sites include Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, among others.
A large number of people, especially the youth are members of these sites. Through these social networking sites, it is now possible to quickly pass on information to very many people across the globe. Therefore, people who want to attract a lot of attention to certain issues are finding these sites very useful.
Impact of Social Media on Social and Cultural Life
Through social media, people are interacting with each other more than they used to. This interaction makes people to get exposed to different social and cultural values and ways of thinking. Social networking has led to interaction of many people all over the world regardless of their nationality or cultures.
They are sharing new ideas about different aspects of life. These interactions are impacting on the social and cultural aspects of people’s lives. The exchange of ideas across the globe leads to influencing people to take on those ideas, consequently changing their ways of life. People are adopting new ways of life that were not in existence previously.
The posting of a naked photo of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, an Egyptian blogger, on Twitter has sparked a lot of controversy, especially because the 20-year old girl comes from a Muslim country where women are not supposed to expose their bodies. Aliaa says she posted the photo in protest of the harassment and humiliation that Muslim go through in the hands of men (Fahmy par 2). This action can be seen as a result of culture erosion due to interactions with people from other cultures through the social media.
Social media promotes increased social interaction between people. Social networking services have changed the social life in that they can connect people from all over the world, who share similar interests and activities. People get to share ideas and information through email and instant messaging.
Social media has increased the connection between people. In addition, social media has changed the means through which people conduct business. People promote their businesses through social networks. Social media has opened a valuable avenue for businesses to reach a larger number of clients at no cost (Henry-Waring and Barraket 19).
Social media has changed interactions between people. Unlike in the past where people used to meet and interact with others in social places like parties and clubs, people are now mostly interacting through social sites. However, interactions through social media are not as deep as those that occur off-line. People mostly interact through the social media and are substituting face-to-face interactions with online interaction (Edwards and Hodges 11).
Social media has changed the way we conduct our lives. Most of the time, we get news from social networking sites instead of the mainstream media. The social media has also changed the way people express themselves. Before the advent of social networking sites, people used to keep most of their lives private. However, today people are sharing a lot of information about themselves through the social networking sites.
They reveal their interests, fears, feelings and weaknesses. Social networking sites have made people to be more transparent and to share their lives with others. The social media has also become a great driver of public opinion. In the past, the mainstream media was the main controller of people’s attention. Today, People are getting thousands of fans on social networking sites. Through these sites, every person has a chance to influence public opinion. Aliaa Magda Elmahdy has thousands of followers on Twitter.
Cyber Sexualities
People are using new technologies to assist in forming new behaviors of intimacy and sexuality. New technologies have led to the emergence of new intimacy patterns such as sex chat rooms, sex messaging, sexuality movement campaigns, virtual sex, and sex newsgroups, among others.
There is so much information available on the internet about sexuality such as dating services, sperm banks, among others. Aliaa Magda Elmahdy used the social media to assist in her sexuality campaign. She posed naked and posted the photo on a social networking site in order to attract attention to her fight against the sexual harassment of Muslim women.
Cyber sexuality has changed our perception about sex, personal identity, gender and sexual orientation. Aliaa Magda Ehmahdy feels that women should be treated respectfully by men. She also says that gays should not be treated differently since they are just different and not abnormal.
Cyber sex involves an exchange of messages describing sexual experiences between two people in a computer network. They engage in fantasy sex where they pretend that they are actually having sex and exchange descriptions of their actions through chatting in order to arouse their sexual feelings. The participants of cybersex can even transmit videos of what they are doing, through webcams, virtual worlds and voice chat systems (Henry-Waring and Barraket 19).
Cybersex can be useful to couples who are in different locations to continue being intimate despite the distance barrier. Moreover, cybersex helps people to satisfy their sexual desires without risking getting pregnant or contracting sexually transmitted infections. However, cybersex has led to many marital problems especially when it ends up in an internet relationship. Cybersex interactions may also be found by other internet users and disclosed to the public. Overindulgence in cybersex can also lead to sexual addiction.
Sociality and Subjectivity
The social media has become extremely popular and almost every person is a member of one social networking site or another. These sites have become the main tool of socialization and interaction and interpersonal interaction is becoming less each day. The sociality of social networking sites depends on the particular purpose of that service.
Some sites like Netmums.com connect parents and share information that is relevant to that group. Connecting groups based on shared interests brings about strong ties. Members of other sites like Facebook socialize through sharing information and experiences about each other. People have access to all kinds of information through sharing. Through these networks, people can forge new friendships and even meet face-to-face later on.
Members of social networking sites are sharing subjective content such as their beliefs, feelings, perspectives and desires. The members of these sites share a lot of personal information, some of which might land them in trouble when it gets into the wrong hands. For instance, sharing information about some activities that employees engage in over the weekend might not portray them in good light to the employer.
Moreover, people are sharing information about everything they are doing and where they are and the public knows every move of the individual. Such information may be used by the wrong people like thieves to conduct robberies. Some students can also be barred from joining some institutions or taking up leadership positions because of the content they post on the social networking sites.
The information that members of these sites share is highly subjective, and they do this without giving a thought to the possible harm it may cause them (Henry-Waring and Barraket 15).
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy shared private information on a social networking site. She posted her naked photo and shared other personal information such as her first sexual encounter, her religious and political affiliations.
New Architectures of Intimacy
There is a rising new architecture of intimacy through social networks. Social networking has changed intimate relationships. People are now looking at the status, photos and comments made in social networking sites to judge whether someone is a potential mate. People already make impressions before meeting face-to -face depending on the content shared on social networking sites (Henry-Waring and Barraket 15).
Social networking has made it possible to establish sexual contacts with people from different geographical locations. Social networking sites have also led to lack of privacy in relationships. Maintaining a strong intimate relationship is becoming harder because of cyber sexuality. People are having multiple relationships through social networking and this is affecting the real relationships (Driscoll 201).
The social networks have changed individuals and now they greatly value their rights to free expression, privacy, and independence and these affect intimate relationships. People are also more upfront about their sexual desires. People state their intentions on the social networking sites clearly and if they are turned down, they move on to explore other options.
Through the social media, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy has been able to express her feelings and views about the way women should be treated in Egypt. She feels that women should not be treated as sexual objects without any rights but should be independent and be able to have power over their sexual relationships with men.
She says that women in Islam are just used by men and do not have any right to decide on matters of sexuality. Aliaa feels that sex should take place with the consent of both parties and it should be an expression of love that is pleasant to both of them.
Networking and Genders
Many social networking sites have an option where people can enter their gender. Not all the users specify their genders. Others can even lie about it and give a false gender (Driscoll 199). One can never be sure about the real sex of the members and questions about the participants’ gender arise during chatting sessions (Doorn, Wyatt and Zoonen 362).
Social network users often use nicknames to identify themselves, making it harder to know someone’s gender. However, one can guess the gender from the nickname. Men will choose nicknames that are masculine while the women go for feminine ones. Members of social networks also reveal their opinions about different matters relating to sexuality. For instance, straight people share information condemning homosexuality (Doorn, Wyatt and Zoonen 365).
However, homosexuals reveal their identity and express their feelings s with pride. Other chats focus on particular body parts, like genitals, which are specific to a specific sex, thus signifying their genders (Doorn, Wyatt and Zoonen 368). Through the social networking sites, the participants go against the traditional perception of sexuality. They talk about their bodies as objects to be desired.
Women in social networking sites are often seen as passive participants who mostly attract attention from the male participants. Participants in social network exchange ideas and engage in discussions on gender and experiences related to a certain gender. Social media has impacted greatly on gender roles especially in intimacy. Unlike in the traditional culture where women are supposed to wait for the men to pursue them, women in social networking sites are making the first move.
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy is a woman who uses the social media to empower her gender. She is not afraid to pass on her message about her disappointment at how women in Egypt are treated by men. She wants to change that but knows that it is a tough fight since women are not given an equal chance to express themselves. She therefore goes against the Islam norms and exposes her body to the public in order for people to pay attention to her views. She says she is proud of being a woman and women should be treated with respect.
Post-feminism
Post-feminism commenced when academics and journalists declared that feminism was dead, in the early 1980’s. The purpose of the post-feminist movement was to assert that there was no more need to be involved in feminism since it had achieved its purpose.
Feminism has made great achievements in ensuring that men and women are treated as equals, and post-feminism is trying to challenge all that. Post-feminism is evident in several characters in media products. The female characters in these programs enjoy their sexuality and claim to be liberated but they are looking for the right man. Post-feminists want to look at women as people instead of separating the sexes (McRobbie 261).
Social networks have brought about women empowerment in institutions. The internet is a very powerful tool for passing on radical feminist information to a large number of the public since with this medium, information control is hard to achieve. Information on the internet is passed on through the social networks very fast and reaches a very number of people. Women are using the internet as a tool for representing themselves in the society.
Some women are expressing their views by posting personal information or naked photographs on the social networking sites to attract attention to their agenda. They are representing their identities through the use of sexuality. For instance, a Chinese woman named Mu Zimei shared her sexual experiences with various men on a social networking site. The woman revealed her real identity and that of the men.
She was conducting a research on male sexual behavior from the perspective of a feminist and was therefore going against the expectations of female sexuality. Mu Zimei was greatly criticized for going against the traditional norms about sexuality, while others commended her for liberating herself from traditional restrictions and being a voice for other Chinese women (Mao 216).
In an effort to empower women and to get people to appreciate their bodies, Zhuying Qingtong posted her nude photographs on a social networking site. Zhuying’s action was a call to the society to stop suppressing the expression of the women and let them be free to make decisions on their own. However, she too was criticized for her actions. These two women were using social networking sites to change the place of women in the Chinese culture (Mao 217).
Another woman who used the social networking service to attract attention to her agenda is 20-year old Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, who posted her naked photograph on Facebook and Twitter. The Egyptian girl is a Muslim and she went against the conservative norms of Muslims to reveal her body to the public. The culture of Islam does not allow women to reveal their bodies or the hair. Therefore, they wear long and loose clothes to cover their bodies and a veil to cover their hair.
She says the reason for displaying her body to the public was to protest against the Islam culture of treating women as sex objects and denying them freedom of expression. She feels that the human body should be appreciated (Fahmy par 7). The social media helped in circulating the photos to reach very many people.
Conclusion
Since the advent of the social media, our lives have undergone tremendous changes. There have been changes in the way people interact, express themselves and the amount of information they share with others. People are now more connected and can be able to communicate instantly with their friend in different geographical locations.
Social networking sites have also been used as an avenue to pass on information of all kinds to a large number of people. Individuals who are disgruntled about a certain issue are using the social media to protest against it. The social media is here to stay and will continue to transform our lives in many more ways.
Works Cited
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Driscoll, Catherine. This is not a Blog: Gender, intimacy, and community. Feminist Media Studies, 2008. Vol. 8,(2) pp. 198-202.
Edwards, Lee, and Hodges Caroline. Public Relations, Society & Culture. USA: Taylor & Francis, 2011.
Fahmy, Mohamed Fadel. “Egyptian blogger Aliaa Elmahdy: Why I posed naked.” CNN. November 20, 2011.
Henry-Waring, Millsom, and Barraket Jo. Dating & Intimacy in the 21st Century: The Use of Online Dating Sites in Australia. International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society. Vol. 6(1) 2008, pp: 14 – 33
Mao, Yuping. Sexuality, Gender, and Body: The role of the internet in women’s self-representations through two Chinese online scandals. Feminist Media Studies. 2008. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 214-217.
McRobbie, Angela. Post-Feminism and Popular Culture. Feminist Media Studies. Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 255-264. 2004.