Media impacting culture and culture impacting media

The Occupy protests, the Arab Spring, the mobilization of resistance against the Government of the Ukraine or in Hong Kong was heavily dependent on the resources provided by the social media. Many observers have concluded that in a networked world the social media possesses the potential to promote public participation, engagement and the process of democratizing public life.

That the Internet and the social media are powerful instruments for mobilization of people is not in doubt. However, it is not its own technological imperative that allows the social media to play a prominent role in social protest. 

The culture of everyday life has become entwined with the Internet.

The flourishing of online dating offers a striking example of how the construction of significant relationships can draw on the resources provided by the social media. In many Western societies online dating has served as a provisional solution to the problems thrown up by a more individuated and segmented social setting.

The growing popularity of virtual encounters has had a significant impact on the way that men and women conduct their everyday affairs. The intermeshing of the virtual with the “real” is part of the reality of contemporary culture.

Apprehensions about children’s health and safety, particularly regarding sex predators have led to new limits imposed on children’s freedom to explore the outdoors. This confinement of children indoors has been associated with the growth of a phenomenon frequently described as the bedroom culture. So the main driver of this process was not digital technology and the social media, but the prior development of an indoor childhood culture. The influence of the Internet has been most significant in the way it has transformed the lives of young people. Their digital bedroom symbolizes a childhood that is significantly mediated through the social media, mobile phones and the Internet. Friendship interaction and peer-topper relations are increasingly conducted online or through text messaging.

Bedroom culture is the product of two interrelated and sometimes contradictory developments. On the one hand the confinement of children indoors is the outcome of adult initiative.

Surveys frequently attest to the fact that children would rather be outdoors and in particular they would rather be playing with their friends. For example, a series of interviews carried out with English children indicated that they would “prefer to be outdoors: hanging on street corners, shopping, at the movies, or playing sport, than indoors using the computer.” At the same time the specific form that bedroom culture assumes is frequently shaped by children’s desire to create their own space and enjoy a measure of independence from adult control.

Bedroom culture represents the antithesis of the family-centered television viewing in a common room.

 Many children’s bedrooms are media-rich environments—a growing proportion of children have computers in bedroom with online access. Highly motivated to create a separate autonomous space where children can experiment and develop their personality, youngsters seek to evade parental control.