Research Method

The research method I am choosing is to do a survey on how young people gather/voice information and opinions through social media sites. I chose this method because I can gather the most information from different groups of people and learn about their opinions the easiest. I plan on making a questionnaire and handing it out to friends and family members between the ages of 13-19.

Does an employer have the right to go on Facebook and search your account? This is the question that is being asked in Helena, Montana. In an article i found on the San Francisco Chronicle's website, it discusses the proposal of a bill that will protect workers' social media privacy. This means that employers will not be allowed to ask you for your username and password for Facebook, Twitter, etc.. In 2009, the city of Bozeman required all potential employees to relinquish their social media and personal email usernames and passwords before accepting employment. Employers believed that doing this would enable them to monitor their employees' behavior such as posting sensitive client information on a social media site. The bill passed the Senate with a vote of 48-2 and now needs the committee's endorsement to move to the full House.
I think this article is very important because it asks the question about how much an employer is allowed to go when they are screening potential employees. I do not think it should be allowed for employers to go onto people's Facebook and Twitter to conduct background checks. In addition, I think usernames and especially passwords should be secret and only known to the user. If employers require knowing the password who knows what they can do one your Facebook or even share your passwords with others. I support this bill and hope that eventually the legislate passes it.  

General Public vs. Twitter

An article I found on CNN discussed how Twitter opinions do not match the mainstream opinions. Pew Research Center conducted a year long study where they focused on political events such as the presidential election and presidential debates. Some of the differences they found from the general public's view to tweets was that Twitter was more liberal and always more negative. Some examples were from the first presidential debate and only 20% of the public thought Obama did a better job than Romney, but 59% of tweets favored him. Pew thinks that this is because most Twitter users are younger than 30 and are more likely to be Democrat. Also, the opinions about Senator John Kerry being nominated as Obama's secretary of state split the public 39% approved, 36% disapproved and 26% had no opinion. On Twitter 6% approved while 32% were negative and 62% expressed no opinion. From this, pew said that on Twitter users decide what they think is important enough mention publicly. An example of this is how nearly 14 million people tweeted about Obama's reelection while 70,000 commented on Kerry's nomination.
I think this article is important because it gives us statistics about how the general public views things and how Twitter users view things. The difference in opinion is mostly because of age difference. People who use Twitter are typically young and liberal and want to voice their opinions which are usually negative. Pew found that only 13% of adults use Twitter and only 3% say they tweet. The general public would mostly consist of 30-60 years old opinions. The opinions are also more negative on Twitter because it is easy to say what they think. The Twitter universe loves it when it's being mean to someone. I think this occurs because users are able to say what they want and no one can comment on it, they can only tweet back to them. Social media has spread the thoughts of different opinions everywhere most which are different from the general public and more negative. This article made me ask if opinions of the general public will change because of the use of Twitter.

In this article I found on Yahoo, it discusses how social media may be a big influence of the election in Kenya. In the last election smart phones and media were only for the upper class and most people received information through the newspaper and radio. After the last election in Kenya, violence occurred and negatively affected Kenya's image of stability. Now that smartphones are cheaper and mostly everyone has access to the media, more people are able to find news faster and allow people to "vent" their anger. Blogger and media guru. Bogonko Bosire, says that "70 percent of the election will be driven by social media propaganda " Social media allows voters to discuss their thoughts and arguments for everyone to see and comment on.
I think this article really shows us how much our society is changing because of social media. People are now able to get information fast and easy in addition to being able to share what they think to everyone instantly. If violence occurred after the last election without any social media, their is probably a greater chance that it will happen again because people are able to spread their thoughts and opinions which others could disagree with and cause huge arguments that could lead to violence in Kenya. The election is next week and it is unclear what the outcome of this election could lead to and if social media has an impact on it.