There was one interesting talk about social media that came out of TEDWomen concerning how social media tools may help reshape societal stereotypes that I thought I’d share.
Joanna Blakely is deputy director at the Norman Lear Center. A few tidbits from her talk:
- Social media tools will help us dismantle stereotypes about gender that we see in the media and advertising.
- Media has very restrictive rules for demographic breakdowns and targeting: you’re a 35 year old, white, female or whatever.
- With the amount of information we can gather from social media tools, we can now connect to people on very specific interests, not just demographics that she calls “Taste Communities,” where shared interests are much better aggregators of people than demographics are.
- Women are using social media a lot now, in many cases, more than men.
- Media companies are going to look at women a lot more because it’s important and relevant.
- This ultimately means that the basic breakdown of gender in terms of demographics may become obsolete…
