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Connectivity (media)


Connectivity refers broadly to social connections forged through mediated communications systems. That is, 'since the arrival of the World Wide Web and the spread of mobile communications, mediated connectivity has been quietly normalized as central to a consolidating ‘global imaginary’ One aspect of this is the ability of the social media to accumulate economic capital from the users' connections and activities on social media platforms by using certain mechanisms in their architecture. According to several scholars (van Dijck and Poell) "it is a key element of social media logic, having a material and metaphorical importance in social media culture". This concept originates from the technological term of "connectivity" but its application to the media field has acquired additional social and cultural implications. The increasing role of social media in everyday life serves as the basis of such connectivity in the 21st century. It shows the interrelations between the users activities on social media and at the same time the empowerment of the social media platforms with the data that was produced by the users and given to those services for granted.

Connectivity developed with the rise of the Internet, first with the introduction Web 1.0 and later Web 2.0. New improvements in equipment, software, the advancement of speed and access have increased the level and quality of connectivity. Along with these improvements, new media such as social networking systems (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+), websites that provide access to user-generated content (e.g. Youtube, Myspace, Flickr), trading and marketing sites (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Groupon) and also game sites (e.g. FarmVille, The Sims Social) have become an essential part of everyday life of an average user: "Just as electricity in the 19th and 20th centuries transformed societies by penetrating every fibre of people’s personal and professional lives, network connectivity is probably the most powerful transformative force in early 21st-century cultures". This made a shift in the understanding of the nature of connectivity and moved the initial focus just from a technical side of the notion to its increasingly acquired techno-socio-cultural character.


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