Question

Explain how Facebook qualifies as a social network from the standpoint of an economist.

please type the answer. thanks

Answer 1

As of June, 2010, Facebook is the dominant social network almost everywhere in the world. The exceptions are mainly autocratic states. In Iran, the dominant social network is a local Farsi-only site called Cloob, which proclaims that it observes Iranian censorship laws. (Nonetheless, the site has been censored since December, 2009.) In China, the dominant social network is the domestically developed and government-monitored Qzone. In Vietnam, it is the domestically developed and government-monitored Zing.

The government-monitored domestic social networking sites don't tend to evolve into centres of alternative political activity. When people think about how internet use might help people evade governmental information control, they still tend to use a mental model drawn from the "samizdat" underground publishing system of the Soviet era. But Soviet-era mass culture contained very few outlets for independent creativity and entertainment that weren't politically restricted. Contemporary media culture even in autocracies isn't like that; it's full of entertaining, creative, personalised stuff to do. About 99.99% of what takes place on social networking sites isn't political. It's flirtation, MP3s of pop songs, classified ads, and so on. And on a site like Zing, that ratio approaches 100%. Using the site for political messaging is like sending out a red flag directly to the security police. In fact, some political discussion does take place on Zing and other websites, but it's likely that police tolerate such discussion and allow users to develop a false sense of security, because it helps the police to identify potential candidates for arrest. Periodic arrests of dissidents caught posting things they had believed to be anonymous help propagate a society-wide chilling effect on political discussion, and a sense that one is better off sticking to flirting, making mp3 playlists, and other entertaining and risk-free online pursuits.

Overall, Facebook has a  positive effect in promoting informal associations and social autonomy. But I think their democratising political effects have been greatly overstated. In autocratic countries, social networks may be almost as likely to help governments to control "the story" (or rather, to let it go wherever it wants, so long as it stays away from politics) as they are to engender movements for political pluralism. The political effects of social networking in free countries are a different question entirely.

Facebook is not Social Media but a Social Media platform to share information on the form of microblogs, photo sharing, social networks, blogs and business networks.

Social Media Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have created online communities and forums where individuals can share personal information, thoughts, accomplishments and believes with other members. Owing to this, there is an enormous amount of information that can be promoted, re-created, shared and searched.

Social Media has introduced extensive and substantial changes in a way by which communities, businesses, organizations and individuals communicate. Due to its extensive presence, it is widely utilized not only by the regular internet users but also by businessmen, political figures, sports personalities, movie stars and professionals.