Hyperpersonal Potential and Hashtivism

            Over the past week, we have been taking notes on and discussing hypersonal potential and communication. More specifically, we talked about online communication and all of the different cues and social context that comes with it. Especially with our generation, communication online and social media is such a big part of younger people’s lives that it is important to learn about the different perspectives that drive the communication.

            Whenever I go online to a social media site and communicate with someone or communicate with someone in person I don’t connect to any of the theories because I never knew about them. For instance, one of the hyperpersonal theories is the lack of social context cues, which states that without any cues it is harder to make impressions. I have experienced this in my own life when I was communication online with my scholarship representative. I wanted to make a good impression, but it was hard to do online because there are many face-to-face cues that are critical that can’t be done online. For example, cues like dressing well and presenting a firm handshake.

            Another theory of hyperpersonal communication is the media richness theory. The theory addresses what makes media rich and it points out three different aspects. Personalized asks who your audience is, immediate feedback is sending messages in real time, and multiple cues is more than just words on a page. This theory connects to my life whenever I facetime my friends or family. When I am facetiming, I am communicating to a certain person, we are communicating in real time, and the cues are more than just words on a page.

Another topic that we discussed in class this past week is the concept of hashtivism. Hashtivism is the term that is used on twitter that can quickly trend a topic and organize it into one place. It is a discussion concept that allows anyone to post their comments about a certain topic and it will all filter into one area. Anyone that has a twitter or other form of social media can and usually does engage in hashtivism. For instance, I engaged in hashtivism when I did the ice bucket challenge back in August. Hashtivism is a concept that tries to bring about social change, so the ice bucket challenge was a huge trending topic that wanted to bring awareness to the disease of ALS. Sometimes hashtivism topics are popular and get a lot of attention, but fail in the end to bring about social change. Back in 2012, the Stop Kony Campaign was launched and the producers of it used a video and hastags to get their message out. The video gained over a million views and the hastag #stopkony was a worldwide trending topic. However, in the end it turned out to be all hype and Kony was never found and America never fully got involved. Hastivism is a powerful concept that can definitely bring about social change and with more and more younger people on social media hastivism has major potential to grow even more.