• irelephant [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    5 days ago

    What would you define social media as?

    Oxford says.

    websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

    That definition certainly matches Lemmy.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      5 days ago

      Social networking is about connecting people, which Lemmy as a forum does. You could argue that the function of Lemmy as a link aggregator is more social media like, but I doubt people would consider an RSS feed reader to be social media either.

      Social media is like TV, a one-to-many medium, usually with some sort of feed curation to promote certain topics.

      • Waryle@jlai.lu
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        5 days ago

        That’s a totally made up definition from your part. Media is the plural of medium, which means “intermediary”. A social media is just the middleman that allows people to socialize. Lemmy is a social media, as well as a social network.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          5 days ago

          Every definition is “made up” 🙄

          What I explained is how these terms are commonly used on the fediverse.

          And anyways, if “social media” and “social network” is the same, why have two different terms for it?

          • Waryle@jlai.lu
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            2 days ago

            totally made up definition from your part

            You forgot the “from your part” that is quite important. Language is a consensus, you just invented your own definition and pretend that it is the consensus.

            And anyways, if “social media” and “social network” is the same, why have two different terms for it?

            They’re not the same, it’s the square/rectangle thing. A social network is a kind of social media, all social medias are not social network. You could argue that Whatsapp is a social media but not a social network (but the frontier is getting blurry with groups and these kind of things).

            • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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              2 days ago

              Wat? Sorry, but your definition is even further from anything that could be called a consensus. You could maybe argue that WhatsApp is a social network, but it definitly isn’t social media and it is completly outlandish to claim so. Where do you even get the “media” part in it? You know, compound words are still made up of individual words that have a meaning by themself. Kinda funny that you accuse me of “making up definitions” 🙄

              But sure there are some blurry edges between them. For example, Instagram is primarily used for social media, but the direct messages are more used like a social network.

              • Waryle@jlai.lu
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                2 days ago

                Where do you even get the “media” part in it?

                I’ll quote myself because I already answered that: « Media is the plural of medium, which means “intermediary” ». That’s the textbook definition of the word media, and the consensus about what it means.

                Whatsapp is the middleman/platform, thus intermediary (= “medium/media”), between two people socializing. I don’t understand what you don’t understand.

                A social network is social media that allows to form groups or communities. Two people communicating is not a network, the whole point of a network is interconnection between members of a group.

                • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                  2 days ago

                  No, that is not what “media” means. That might be what the original word in Latin meant, but in English it is used to refer to things like newspapers, TV channels and so on, and “social media” is a direct reference to that.

                  A social network is social media that allows to form groups or communities. Two people communicating is not a network, the whole point of a network is interconnection between members of a group.

                  Indeed, and that is why I don’t really agree to classify WhatsApp as a social network, but it has chat groups, so it is closer to a social network than social media.