Social Media Presence
A category five hurricane swept through Barbados on September 1st. The damage was extensive: at least 75 people died and went missing, houses were reduced to rubble, and communities were torn apart. During and after the hurricane, Bahamians relied on social media to check whether or not their family members were safe and to request local and foreign aid. News quickly spread throughout the world that people in the affect region needed urgent help; soon enough, big social media influencers started to advocate for donations and other forms of help. Mykah Smith, a Bahamian social media influencer with more than 5600 followers, posted messages on her Instagram account and urged her followers to donate.
Big social media influencers possess the ability to change the way their followers think and act. When you look at the ego-network of someone who has thousands or millions of followers, you will see that the graph would be densely populated with nodes and edges. A post from the social media influencer will be able to travel across all the edges and reach millions of nodes either by direct contact or by word-of-mouth. This reminds me of the Stanley Milgram experiment that was discussed in lecture. Since the average number of forwards to get a letter to Boston was six, big social media influencers could have the ability to spread messages in a matter of one or two forwards around the world. This is surprising and alarming at the same time. Our society is way more connected now than it was in the 1960’s; those who have huge presences on social media platforms are able to sway the public opinions on a controversial topic. However, in many cases, such as this one, social media influencers are a great way to spread awareness to an issue that might not be represented or stated on a news network.