SEO India : what is social media?

Social media are characterized by the principal of participatory culture. They are media content providers and services that allow for horizontal, or peer to peer, communication, production and distribution of content. In some cases, the platform itself is open to lateral forms of participation. That is, users have input in the structure and affordances, not just the content, of the social media. Cellphone texting to Twitter, YouTube to Seesmic, Facebook to Second Life, Blogging to Newsvine and other social journalism sites…these are all social media that emphasize the relationality among users, rather than a “top-down” one-way distribution channel. The question is whether or not media has always been “social”? Indeed, greater emphasis on user participation, or active consumerism, has emerged in recent years. However, it may be possible to say that consumers have always been active; despite more limited entry points and freedoms, consumers have always “decoded” (to use Stuart Hall’s name for it) media content and reproduced it socially, at will.