In this digital age, we are hypherconnected with several devices.There are several sensors around us are collecting data on different categories. Some of these sensors are approved by the data objects (by us) for use of a service. Social media domains also have crucial role in the process of producing data. All these interactions are creating a virtual reality in which we need to show ourselves.
If you are one of digital natives, this is not a particular problem. However, if you are a digital immigrant, then you are judging your behaviors about promoting yourself. When you look up from a dictionary, we will see the definition “the action of promoting or publicizing oneself or one’s activities, especially in a forceful way”. Promotion basicly entered English language in 14th century. Its originall from Latin promotio, which means moving forward.
The advancement of ideas and figures have changed throughout the human history in different ways. Ideas move forward with using various mediums. From papyrus to paper letters, printing press, newspapers, books, records to Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Clubhouse, there is a long way to go. But human being shared its ideas and assumptions on various subjects by utilizing these mediums. When it was a letter between two persons, only sender and receiver would know what is inside it. The effectiveness of the letter is limited. After few centuries later, Standford University made a project and demonstrated how European intellectuals exchanged their ideas with their counterparts in a wide network. The photo below shows Voltaire’s correspondence between 1755 -1776. You could find more intellectuals and their networks on the project website.
Today the spread of news and fame has remarkably transformed in this age. The introduction of social media platforms has changed the speed and spread of news around the globe. Without any segregation anyone could easily send her/his message to the audience. Unexpected messages and media quickly get the attention of people and produced more followers in the media. The easy fame and dopamine secretion make people addicted to the social media. More followers and more attention supports pseudo-satisfaction feeling. Additionally, the false sense of production is quickly pleasing us in minutes or hours. No cross-check required. No testing required. In the beginning, some degree anonymity also gave some encouragement for defamation. In the end, as Andy Wardol wisely mentioned “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes“.
Producing for attraction wave also affected homo academicus of Pierre Bourdieu. The social media domain included as a new dimension to power games of politics. The follower numbers of an account is taken as a proof for its influence and legitimacy. In the early days of social media, if you have high number of followers and your messages shared more than others, this would be regarded as your influence in the public. The lifetime of an information becomes shorter than before but there is an incremental change in the quantity of circulating data. The shortness of data’s life span and intensity of a message in a minute worried some homo academicus with a feeling that they will be invisible in the social media world. Now, academics are competing with their colleagues to be visible. Among all duties and rising pressure of producing high number of papers is affecting the academics. To keep a paper visible and trust on a search engine’s consciousness to show the publication to the relevant people is another process for the academics. You will see several social media messages that academics are introducing their new publications to not to be forgotten in the file of publications. Most of academics could not find necessary time to read huge number of articles.
With the pandemics, academics also started to create enormous amount of content for different purposes. After the publication promotion, some academics try to find alternative ways to make themselves visible in the social domains. In the beginning, it seems a natural activity, but in reality the process add another burden to cognitive process of them. It is also critical to note when the number of the messages rised, strategies of self-promotion are turning into second-rate farces. Simply, academics are starting to market themselves to be visible. There are platforms such as Academia.edu and Researchgate.net which helps the academics to spread their research. However, some of the academics aimed to get more followers by various tricks and tactics just to be popular in the market. This is a rational move but not appropriate up to deontological ethics or learned wisdom from our teachers. It is really hard to decide what to do. Inter alia, most of academics are forming small or medium size network in Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord or Slack to cooperate and talk the problems of their world. We know that similar minded networks would help to cooperate more but it is also promote a type of conservatism among them. We will see how this trend would evolve.
