Blog 4# Balancing PLN, Media Literacy, & Public Discourse

In today’s world, social media has a very huge influence on others’ life. People have easier access to the lives of well-known people. Well-known people here are usually movie stars, politicians, businessmen, and rich people. They are followed and noted daily through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on. All these well-known celebrities know how to handle their social media accounts, or they mostly have people managing their accounts. They try to maintain a close touch with their fans this way. This way the celebrities can have a positive influence on their fans. Daily tweets and statuses help these celebrities to stay in the eye of the public. We often see celebrities tweeting or apologizing for their wrongdoings on these platforms, this way creating a direct medium of contact between them and their fans. The public tends to follow anything and everything that their favourite celebrity does, and any good deeds are done by them would also be followed. 

A personal learning network or PLN is one very useful way of interacting with people, connecting with them, and understanding their thoughts and their preferences. It’s always a good idea to find online resources, share our thoughts and improve our knowledge. Getting day-to-day updates, following renowned celebrities and referring to their blogs are some of the ways. Community platforms are established by employers and can be accessed only by the company people. It has its own limitations as it has only company information and employers can easily log in to their accounts and get to know all the work-related content that they require from these platforms. Building a PLN technically means you release your information to the outside world and it’s on the internet. So, it’s always safe to make sure the circle of friends with whom you share any information is safe and the people are loyal. Trusting the right ones and building a good reliable reputation both are important. 

Media literacy is a means of accessing the information from the media in order to make some changes by communicating, creating and reflecting the information to the world. Media information when used properly is a positive sign. People, especially children are not given proper guidance to use media which leads to issues such as bullying, depression, body shaming and sexual and substance abuse. The proper way of dealing with the media and giving back should be taught by both parents and teachers. Staying neutral for both positives and negatives from the media is the key.PLN is one way through which views and perspectives are shared and opinions are generated likewise. Accepting all the viewpoints and varied opinions makes PLN diverse and helps promote its development. Public figures are the ones who are admired and followed everywhere. Each move from them has its own positive and negative effects. Some people tend to stand by them, and some do not. Differing viewpoints and opinions from people let them decide which side to choose. Social media is a platform where we can put forward any of our thoughts or opinions. Positive comments are appreciated, and negative comments need to be accepted. It always matters how we address any criticism on the public platform. Being respectful in the way you address a critical comment is the key point. The way we react will reflect our personal character, it can build or destroy it in a single go. Negative views sometimes point out the mistakes in our opinions which can be improved or corrected. So, respecting any comment should be taken care of. Sometimes, it’s best to get our facts right about any topic before we indulge in any social media banter. We tend to misuse our freedom of speech as soon as we come across any opinion or criticism without getting our facts rights which is wrong.