Social Media Research (Challenge 3.3)
This week’s research invited us to search social media for our topics. In order to research social media, I felt it best to turn to Twitter for information. Twitter is used by many people because of its sheer convenience in spreading news, whether it is mundane or something worthwhile. I first looked for accounts that regularly updated about LGBT rights and activism, and I found the account https://twitter.com/gaynewsnet and I was definitely pleased to find that not only did they update their Twitter constantly, but the moderator also made sure to include relevant links. This twitter led to not only popular media celebrities supporting LGBT rights, but they also provided information relevant to the community. For example, they have tweeted about LGBT importance in politics and how the stances of presidential candidates. This Twitter account obviously wishes to keep the public informed, and I feel that this is a fantastic quality to have when being informational.
I wanted to find more information about LGBT representation, and Twitter was once again a good place to search. Without a hashtag, I simply searched “LGBT representation” on Twitter to see what sorts of tweets were making it through the Internet. I found that many people speak out about representation through their Twitter. Perhaps they feel that their voice will be more easily heard through Twitter? Either way, some of these tweets were satirical and criticized the lack of representation through a ruse of humor, and others were openly speaking about the misrepresentation of LGBT people. Whether these tweets were linked to an account that focused on LGBT topics exclusively or were from a personal account, people used Twitter to express their feelings about representation and LGBT rights.
Finally, I wanted to see what sort of information other social media outlets had for my topic. I feel that many young adults are using Instagram nowadays, however I did not find the sort of information I had hoped to find. Instead of finding usable research, I found that Instagram was mostly used to make oneself known in the LGBT community. I searched “#lgbt” into Instagram, and was led to selfies of LGBT youth and their personal accounts. While these posts don’t provide for in-depth research of my topic, it helps to show that the community is out there and existing, and they are using social media as a way to connect with each other. Social media will continue to be important for LGBT people because, if one cannot find a safe place within their home to be themselves, then maybe their safe place can be cultivated through social media.
