In Citizen Marketers, McConnell and Huba retell the story of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine album's rocky release. Here is the story in short: Singer/songwriter Fiona Apple was unhappy with her current album recording of Extraordinary Machine. Sony Records, her current label, was unhappy with the finished product as well. Apple wanted to re-record the album under her own creative license but Sony denied her the funding. She thought her music career had ended and saw no future for the album. Someone got a hold of one of the songs and leaked it to a radio station. The buzz from the station prompted one fan to petition Sony to release the album. The man, Dave Muscato, built a website, FreeFiona.com to rally against the studio. His petition soon went viral and gained support from fans all over the world. They even went as far as to send an extraordinary large box of plastic apples each signed by a petitioner. The rally proved to be successful and Sony agreed to let Fiona Apple re-record the album under her own creative merit.
This story, like so many others,demonstrates the power that the internet and social media have in influencing ingenuity and change. Some are even of the belief that current President Obama won the election largely because of his use of social media in campaigning. The Internet and social media spreading information and motivating others to seek out new ideas or change is a positive contribution to society. However, because the Internet is not explicitly monitored false information can also be spread.
Recently, Steven Colbert unveiled a false story that had been spread through social media outlets. Apparently, someone had mockingly posted on a website false information about the game of beer pong spreading herpes, among other diseases. This story was picked up from a website and run at a college newspaper. Then, the story was passed from the college newspaper to a local news station which ran an entire segment on the false story. Although Colbert provided a humorous recollection of this viral spread of false information, the fact is falsities can and are being distributed with ease through social media outlets. This truth is the reason why we must use caution when using social media to gain information. The Internet and social media can bring about great things like the Fiona Apple story demonstrates. On the other hand, the Internet and social media can also spread false information.
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This is interesting that you wrote about this false story. I wrote something similar. This whole topic about social media providing an outlet for good outcomes as well as bad provokes a catch 22. There is no way to monitor what is posted through social media sites so how do we knock out all the false information without destroying the outlet for the good that social media provides? I honestly think that sites can try as hard as they can to monitor and filter information that is posted on these sites but it would be very difficult to devote enough manpower to monitoring EVERYONE in cyber world with EVERY bit of information they post. There is no way. I guess we will just have to decide what is truth on our own.
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