Journal Response #3

The importance of circulation has been significantly increasing in direct proportion to the increasing prevalence of the use of the digital media. Today before anyone posts anything online there are a number of thing to consider: Who is going to see this? How will they react to what I’m about to post? What will people say about it? Jenkins places a specific importance on the public constantly remixing, changing, and spreading the media presented to us. He says “the digital age acts as a catalyst” for media. Knowing this, people have to be careful about what they say and do when it comes to digital media because it can spread like wild fire for anyone to see. The responsibility of ‘spreadability’ lies with the user of the digital media and Jenkins comments, “Spreadability recognizes the importance of the social connections among individuals, connections increasingly made visible by social media platforms” (6). We the public decide the importance of the media and from there decided whether or not it is worthy enough to ‘spread’ to others. Authors, journalists, news reporters, the everyday Tweeter takes this into account and this will influence their composing process knowing that what they’re going to say/ post could either have a very significant impact and be widely circulated or have little to no impact and remain only seen by few and hardly circulated. One component of circulation that is a major aspect of the digital circulation is the comment section on a post. People can comment anything from random ass pictures to hashtags and @’s that bring other people to the discussion viewing of the post. In Smith’s article he discusses the fact that comments create bias. Some fat ass man who spends his days behind his computer screen, trolling and commenting hate on everything thing he can get his Cheeto stained fingers on, can be the deciding factor for another commenter on their opinion of the post. This goes along with the Response Bias that accompanies all public commenting networks. Most comments are negative and often not all that accurate, Smith sates “We have finally realized that the kind of person who devotes his day to arguing with strangers anonymously on the Internet is not necessarily representative of a large swath of public opinion or necessarily good at articulating anything. And that anonymity breeds gleefully expressed hatred” (2). SO this is another thing people have to take into account before they post anything: what is some fat weirdo going to say about my picture of this kitten with a birthday hat on? Probably nothing positive. The circulation in today’s society is one that can make or break a post so THINK before your post.