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The Influence of Television Media on Society

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Mass Media Influence On society... Exhibition IB PYP project. Stowers Elementary School. Enjoy! :D Song is by John mayer -- Waiting for the world to change and Still alive - portal. I do not own any of the music.

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My name is Claire and this is my video answering the question, "How does mass media influence society?".

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How Social Networks Have Changed The World

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Sould business be considering Social Media in their marketing mix?

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"#Hashtag" with Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

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Michael Wu, Ph.D. is Lithium's Principal Scientist of Analytics, digging into the complex dynamics of social interaction and online communities.

He's a regular blogger on the Lithosphere and previously wrote in the Analytic Science blog.

You can follow him on Twitter at mich8elwu.

This post kicks off a multi-post miniseries on the topic of influencers: how to find them, engage them, and collaborate with them in word-of-mouth ( WOM) marketing programs.

Influence marketing today is in a state of experimentation that scientists call the pre-paradigm phase or exploratory phase. During this phase, everyone is trying different approaches based on experience. There are incomplete theories about why some approaches work and others fail, but there is no underlying fundamental principle that explains everything. My approach in this series is to see if we can gain a deeper understanding by analyzing the process of influence from a data analytics perspective, using a simplified model of social media influence.
A Simplified Model of Social Media Influence:
Influence involves two entities, which I will refer to as influencer and target.

1. The influencer's power to influence depends on two factors:

a. Credibility: The influencer's expertise in a specific domain of knowledge.

Please note: There is no such thing as a universal influencer, because no one can possibly be influential in all domains. The best that anyone can hope for is an influencer in a specific domain of knowledge

b. Bandwidth: The influencer's ability to transmit his expert knowledge through a social media channel.

Please note: Active influencers in one channel may not even be present on another channel. So influencers are not only specific to a domain of knowledge, they are specific to social media channels

2. The target's likelihood to be influenced by a specific influencer depends on four factors:

a. Relevance (the right information): How closely the target's information needs coincide with the influencer's expertise. If the information provided by the influencer is not relevant, then it is just spam to the target and will be ignored.

b. Timing (the right time): The ability of the influencer to deliver his expert knowledge to the target at the time when the target needed it. There is only a small time window along the decision trajectory when the target can be influenced. Outside this golden window, even relevant content will be treated as spam because there is no temporal relevance.

c. Alignment (the right place): The amount of channel overlap between the target and the influencer. If the target is on a different social media channel, then the influencer's information either take too long or never reach the target.

d. Confidence (the right person): How much the target trusts the influencer with respect to his information needs. Even if the influencer is credible, the target must have confidence in him. Without trust, any information from the influencer will be downgraded by the target.

This model is very general, and it is intended to be applicable to any social media channel. However, it is by no means complete. I just like to use the principle of Occam's razor and start with a simple model that is consistent with the data out there and see how much it explains. We can always add to the model if it proves to be insufficient. As Albert Einstein once said, " Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

Please note that a lot of attention has been focused on influencers, but very little has focused on their targets. Although it is easier to work with the influencers, we must not forget that it is the targets that we want ultimately. I hope this simple model will help you think about social influence from a more balanced perspective, so that even when we are looking for the influencers and working with them, we still have the targets in mind.

Now that you know the basics of how social media influence works, it should not be difficult to diagnose the success or failure of a social media campaign, at least from a data analytics perspective. As shown in the photo above, any broken link between the influencer and the target is enough to break the chain and stall the whole influence process. Next time, I will show you how to take the first step of WOM/influencer marketing: find the influencers.
Related Blogs

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The 6 Factors of Social Media Influence: Influence Analytics 1

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﻿ Michael Wu, Ph.D. is Lithium's Principal Scientist of Analytics, digging into the complex dynamics of social interaction and online communities. He's a regular blogger on the Lithosphere and previously wrote in the Analytic Science blog. You can follow him on Twitter at mich8elwu. This po...

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How powerful and toxic are the messages about values that children are receiving from popular media today? According to a large body of research, the answer is "very." Though I'm obviously making a judgment on what good and bad values are, I don't think many parents would disagree with the values that I believe aren't healthy for children. The research demonstrates that the values I'm going to describe actually hurt your children.

Though there are many values that you want to protect your children from adopting, I'm going to focus on the three that I believe are most influenced by the popular media, most harmful to children's development and that have research to support my stance. But don't let my short list prevent you from identifying the unhealthy values that you see hurting your children and from taking steps to prevent your children from being exposed to those values.

Success at any cost. An unsettling aspect of the media's perspective on success is its imperative that success must be achieved at any cost. This culture of success causes children to believe that they must succeed in our culturally defined ways to be esteemed by society, peers and, most sadly, by their parents and themselves. Not surprisingly, this message has created a desperate need for success in children. When that need is combined with growing up in a culture of greed, fraud and the absence of culpability, they learn that they can use any and all means to attain that success.

This culture of avarice not only tolerates, but also encourages this "win at all costs" mentality by modeling and messaging dishonesty, cheating, manipulation and back stabbing. Examples of this distorted view of success abound in our culture. Reality TV relishes lying and deception. Corporate malfeasance, for example, insider trading and tax fraud, is revealing itself to be the rule rather than the exception in Big Business. Sports has seen the proliferation of illegal performance-enhancing drugs among star athletes who are revered by young athletes.

This "the ends justify the means" attitude is starkly evident among high school students. Recent surveys found that 75 percent of high school students admitted to cheating in the previous 12 months, as compared to only 25 percent in 1963 and 50 percent in 1993. Particularly unsettling is the finding that about 50 percent of high school students see nothing wrong with cheating. The rationales that students use to justify their cheating are disturbing, for example, "I actually think cheating is good. A person who has an entirely honest life can't succeed these days"; "We students know that the fact is we are almost completely judged on our grades. They are so important that we will sacrifice our own integrity to make a good impression"; and "I believe cheating is not wrong. People expect us to attend 7 classes a day, keep a 4.0 GPA, not go crazy and turn in all of our work the next day. What are we supposed to do, fail?"

This "just win, baby" message that children get from popular culture can also be life-threatening. The use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs is present at all levels of sport and increasing among young athletes. Recent research indicates that between four and 12 percent of high school male athletes said they had taken steroids. Pressure to make varsity teams, receive college scholarships and pursue the dream of professional or Olympic success (however much of a pipe dream that is for all but a few young athletes) compel many young athletes to take drastic steps to improve performance. These athletes are heavily influenced by professional athletes who act as their role models. They see that the benefits of steroid use are significant and the consequences of being caught are minimal. The invincibility that many teenagers feel precludes them from considering the health risks of steroid use, including infertility, high blood pressure, liver damage and prostate cancer. Young athletes also ignore the psychological and emotional dangers of steroid use, for example, hyper-aggressiveness -- what is known as "roid rage" -- irritability and, upon their discontinuation, depression, lethargy and feelings of hopelessness.

Technology now enables young people to cheat more creatively, with less effort and with less chance of getting caught. For example, students can now plagiarize written assignments with ease from the wealth of information on any subject they can find on the Internet. There are also websites from which students can purchase papers rather than actually write them.

Research has also found a "social contagion" effect in which young people are more likely to cheat when around others who cheat. When children hear or see others cheat, they assume it's acceptable to cheat or feel that they must cheat to keep up with their peers. Before the recent advancements in technology, though, the circle of contagions to which young people were exposed was quite small, for example, a group of friends or a sports team. The Internet now exposes children a much wider and more diverse range of contagions, from peers to professional athletes to politicians to businesspeople. The messages from many of those contagions tell children that everyone cheats, it's OK to cheat, and they must cheat if they are going to keep up with those who are already cheating.

Disturbingly, cheating in high school and college doesn't appear to be something that young people grow out of. To the contrary, recent research indicates that those who cheat early in life are more likely to cheat later in life, for example, by lying to customers, bosses or significant others; overstate insurance claims; and falsify tax returns.

There are few more powerful indications of the corruption of children in America by popular media than this unprincipled attitude toward success. This is the crazy new world in which your children are growing up. With so much of our culture sending messages through its technological conduits to your children that it's okay to lie, cheat, steal, be irresponsible and act selfishly, how can your children not come to the conclusion that such behavior is not only perfectly acceptable, but absolutely necessary to find success in life?

Wealth and Materialism. Money certainly has great value. Money provides for basic needs, such as food, clothing and shelter, as well as freedom from financial stress and opportunities for interesting and enriching experiences. Additionally, material possessions, "stuff" as the late comedian George Carlin called it, can fulfill practical, aesthetic, entertainment, athletic and other needs and wants.

The pursuit of wealth and material goods for their own sake or in the belief that they will offer something deeper and meaningful is, based on extensive research, a fantasy foisted on parents and children alike by popular media to meet its own profit-driven ends. Materialism refers to "focusing on attaining material possessions..." and the belief that the amassing of wealth, "materialistic pursuits, accumulation of things, and presentation of the 'right image" are necessary for happiness. Our culture does its best to convince people that wealth and materialism will make them happier, more attractive and popular and of higher status. Yet, to the contrary, the research shows that it has quite the opposite effect, specifically, people who value high financial success are less happy, have lower self-esteem, are more depressed and anxious and have less healthy relationships. Unfortunately, in the battle between popular culture and the facts, popular culture is winning and its influence has trickled down to children.

Children these days are inundated by media that is saturated with messages of wealth and materialism, from celebrity magazines that feature mansions and expensive cars to start-up millionaires (and even billionaires) in their 20's to reality TV shows in which ordinary people get rich with little talent or effort. Children get the message early and often that they way to distinguish themselves is with money and "stuff." These messages, combined with the "anything is possible" messages that children get from our culture, conveys to them that wealth and material possessions are not only important, but also attainable. It's no surprise, then, that a recent survey revealed that 81 percent of young people rate "getting rich" as their first or second most important goal. There is not, however, any accompanying messages about what it actually takes to make money or any discussion of the problems that come from valuing too much the acquisition of wealth.

Other research indicates that the strongest influences on the materialistic values that children develop about money and stuff comes from their parents, peers and popular culture. For example, children's materialism was predicted by the materialist values of their mother (the more materialistic mom is, the more her children are), how involved and nurturing mothers were in their children's lives (the less involved and nurturing moms were, the more materialistic their children were) and children's perceptions of inter-parent conflict (the more conflict they perceived, the more materialistic they were).

Popular culture, also not surprisingly, has an impact on whether children come to value wealth and materialism? Most of the research has focused on television advertising and those findings are clear: Children who are exposed to more advertising are more materialistic. They also ask their parents to buy more things and those requests lead to more parent-child conflict. For example, heavy television viewers use the "nag factor" far more than light television viewers to persuade their parents to buy things they want. Moreover, materialism is negatively related to prosocial values and behavior and to self-esteem.

Strategies for marketing products to children using so-called "old media," notably television and radio, include repetition (e.g., repeating the same commercial during Saturday morning cartoons), branded characters (e.g, Chester the Cheetah, Cap'n Crunch), catchy slogans ("They're great!"), product placement (e.g., E.T. eating Reese's Pieces), merchandising tie-ins (e.g., SpongeBob Squarepants, Shrek) and giveaways (e.g., Cracker Jack: "A prize in every box"). The advent of new media in the last decade has allowed popular culture to create supersystems that include websites (e.g., Candystand sponsored by Kraft), Youtube videos, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, video games, tracking software and spyware, online and video games and viral and stealth marketing that exposes children to even more undue influence on their values.

Fame. A recent UCLA study reported findings that I think you will agree are truly alarming. The researchers analyzed the values expressed on the most popular television shows among so-called tweens (children ages 9-11) every decade from 1967 to 2007. Just so you can get a sense of how TV viewing has changed, here are the shows that were selected: 1967: Andy Griffith, The Lucy Show; 1977: Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days; 1986: Growing Pains, Alf; 1997: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World; 2007: American Idol, Hannah Montana. The results revealed little change in values presented on the shows between 1967 and 1997 during which time the five most expressed values according to researchers were "community feeling," "benevolence," "image," "tradition" and "popularity" (three out of the five would be generally considered to be healthy) and the five least expressed values were "fame," "physical fitness," "hedonism," "spiritualism" and "financial success" (three out of five would be generally considered to be unhealthy values). Only during the most recent decade did a dramatic shift in values occur. The new top-five values were "fame," "achievement", "popularity," "image" and "financial success" (with "self-centered" and "power" close behind) and latest bottom-five values were "spiritualism," "tradition," "security," "conformity" and "benevolence" (with "community feeling" to follow).

An additional analysis of the data revealed a significant increase from 1997 to 2007 in the centrality of fame to the main characters in the television shows. Related values that also increased substantially included "ambition," "comparison to others," "attention seeking," "conceitedness," "glamour" and "materialism."

Given that the findings described in this research were not a gradual shift across the decades studied but rather an abrupt change only in the last decade, the results can't readily be attributed to demographic patterns related to increased wealth or education. Instead, the most dramatic change, and the likely cause of these results, is the rapid and all-encompassing emergence of new technology that has given popular culture new and startling reach and influence.

The programming through which these value messages are being communicated to your children are growing by the year. Since the data from this study were collected, more televisions shows aimed at the tween audience are being produced, including Big Time Rush, True Jackson and iCarly. In fact, seven out of the top ten shows aimed at tweens are about teenagers who have achieved fame with careers in entertainment. Not surprisingly, all of these shows send the same message, namely, that fame is the singular goal and it can apparently be achieved with little preparation or hard work.

Of course, you could argue that just because popular media is sending value messages to children doesn't mean that they're paying attention to them, much less internalizing them. Unfortunately, preliminary research by the same investigators examining this question indicates that children are getting the message from popular culture. According to this new study, fame is now the number-one aspirational value among children 9 to 11 years old. Another survey of children under 10 years of age found that, among their ten favorite things, being famous, attractive and rich topped the list and being fat topped the list of worst things.

Should you be alarmed by this dramatic shift in the content of popular media? Absolutely! Is there any way for you to exert influence to reverse this destructive trend at a societal level? Probably not, as the forces supporting these messages are powerful. All you as a parent can do is educate yourself about these unhealthy influences on your children and do your best to limit their exposure to those messages and expose to them to positive values that will counteract the bad ones. And, perhaps most important, don't allow yourself to be seduced these harmful messages.

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Media Teaches Bad Values to Your Children

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How powerful and toxic are the messages about values that children are receiving from popular media today? According to a large body of research, the answer is "very." Though I'm obviously making a judgment on what good and bad values are, I don't think many parents would disagree with the values that I believe aren't healthy for children.

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Concerns about media influence on teenagers

It's normal to be worried about the influence of media on your child.

Media influence on teenagers can be deliberate - for example, advertising is often directed at children and teenagers. This means that children and teenagers are increasingly conscious of brands and images. You're not alone if your child has pestered you to buy the next 'in' thing!

Media influence can also be more indirect. An example of this might be the increasing sexualisation of content in advertising, magazines, television shows and music videos. These media products often show 'sexy' women with unrealistic body types. Other kinds of media feature violent imagery and coarse language - for example, video games and song lyrics.

These indirect media influences can suggest to teenagers that these are 'normal' ways to look and behave.

But being exposed to media influence, images and messages doesn't automatically mean your child is at risk. Teenagers don't just take on board everything the media - or anybody else - tells them. They can be savvy consumers of media messages.

The media isn't the only source of information for teenagers - or the only way they get media messages and images. Teenagers are also influenced by their families, peers, community mentors and other role models. You have a big role to play in helping your child develop media literacy and make good choices about media use.

Media influence and risky teenage behaviour

There are some links between media content and negative teenage behaviour.

Media influence on body image
Your child's body image is influenced by many factors. These include family environment, ability or disability, peer attitudes, the fashion industry, cultural background - and mainstream media, social media and advertising.

If teenagers see unrealistic 'thin' or 'muscly' body types often enough, it can have an impact on their body image and dieting behaviour. This is especially true when there's no-one to disagree with messages like 'thin is beautiful'.

Body image ideals in the media have increased teenagers' desire for plastic surgery. For example, some teenage girls now want breast implants and laser hair removal, and some boys want soft tissue fillers (muscle enhancers).

Media influence and violence
Seeing violent media content often enough can make it more likely that someone will behave in an aggressive or violent way, be less understanding of other people's needs and feelings, or feel more afraid of their environment.

This kind of content doesn't always - or even often - show what would happen if people behaved violently in real life. It can mean that teenagers don't get a realistic understanding of what happens when you're violent in real life.

Media influence and other unhealthy behaviour
Media can also influence other unhealthy or risky behaviour, including smoking, drinking alcohol and taking other drugs. But it's worth remembering that media is just one of several influences on this kind of behaviour. Other more powerful influences include family and friends.

Media influence and positive teenage behaviour

Here's the good news: the media can be a positive influence for teenagers.

For example, teenagers who are exposed to and take an interest in the news are more likely to be interested in major social and political issues. This can help educate them and encourage them to become more involved as citizens in their communities.

Teenagers can also pick up important health promotion messages from the media - for example, messages aimed at preventing youth depression and suicide, encouraging healthy eating and lifestyle habits, and promoting positive, respectful relationships.

How media celebrities influence teenagers

Celebrities often get into the media for bad behaviour. But celebrity role models aren't always bad influences.

Media influence can be powerful if a celebrity role model says a particular lifestyle, product or behaviour is good. There are lots of examples of celebrities whose lifestyles, values and behaviour provide positive examples. The hard work and success of these role models can be inspirational.

Children and teenagers do need to be aware that some celebrities are paid to advertise the products they endorse.

Helping your child handle media influence

Exposure to media messages is a part of modern life, but you can help your child work out what's worth paying attention to.

Checking and monitoring media
You can start by checking out the music, TV shows, movies, video games, YouTube videos and celebrities your child likes. When you know what he's interested in - for example, which video games, fan fiction or social media - you might be able to spot the images and messages your child is most likely to be influenced by.

You won't always know what your child is watching or listening to because teenagers watch content like YouTube videos on mobile phones. But you can monitor what your child watches by keeping an eye on what she's watching on TV or at the cinema and negotiating some rules and limits.

Talking about media messages
The best way to help your child navigate media influence is to talk about the messages. For example, if your child loves Pretty Little Liars, you could talk together about female friendships, sexuality and bullying.

Or if your child is into a computer game like Grand Theft Auto, you could talk about the violence, exploitation of women and the criminal activity. You could also talk about how your child would handle these situations in real life.

When you're talking about media with your child, you can encourage your child to interpret media by suggesting some questions he could ask about it. Pick out a magazine or TV ad and ask your child: who's behind it? What's their motivation? What do they want from you? Whose voice is missing? How does the ad make you feel? Do they want you to feel that way? Why?

You can do the same for celebrity role models. Encourage your child to ask herself: why do I like these people? Are they being presented in a realistic way? Are they like this in real life? What values does this person portray? How do they make me feel about myself?

What about banning media?
Monitoring your child's media choices doesn't mean banning him from watching or playing. It just means getting him to be more aware of the messages he's taking in. It's best to talk about these messages regularly, not just once. And it's a good idea to limit how much your child plays or watches.

It might also help to know that if your child is exposed to a range of content, it's less likely that a particular program, game or app will have too much influence over her. It can help to encourage your child to use a range of media and technologies rather than focusing on just one.

On the other hand, you might choose to ban certain games, apps or shows. If you do this, you'll need to explain why to your child. If appropriate, you might need to negotiate the issue with him.

Helping teenagers balance media influence

A wide range of activities is important for children's development. These include physical and creative activities and anything that involves relationships and interactions with real people.

You can also introduce your child to real-life, positive role models. Ways to do this could be joining local community groups, sporting clubs or mentoring programs.

You're still your child's most important role model. By being an informed and questioning consumer, you show your child how to handle powerful media influences. Part of this might be ignoring advertisements for the latest and greatest new gadget, or having family conversations about how the media works.

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It's normal to be worried about the influence of media on your child. Media influence on teenagers can be deliberate - for example, advertising is often directed at children and teenagers. This means that children and teenagers are increasingly conscious of brands and images.

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This cartoon shows what bloggers tend to think before they publish what they wrote or said.

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This shows how media can be everywhere and how much of an impact it is to society.

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According to Local Media Works, local news brands, in print and online, are among the UK's most popular media, reaching 40 million people each month (JICREG, 2015) - that's more than the population of Canada. Yet even with these impressive figures, explains Craig Nayman (pictured below), chief commercial officer, Archant,local media has sometimes found itself undervalued by the advertising industry.
Demonstrated by a wide-reaching portfolio of brands (there are 1,000 local newspapers and 1,700 associated websites in the UK, according to Local Media Works, 2016), regional media still sits at the heart of communities up and down the country. But, in a world where attention spans are declining, trust in media is being questioned and the news market becomes more cluttered, media owners must continue to take pride in creating content that makes a real difference to people's lives - all driven by emotion and connection to community. We need to make sure that the right tools are in place to ensure we evolve as consumer behaviour changes and prevent threats, such as ad-blockers, becoming dominant.

By really getting under the skin of a community, regional media owners are able to offer advertisers an engaged, targeted audience. Regional media hosts some of the oldest and most respected news titles with extraordinary brand heritage that have built up trust with readers over hundreds of years. This brand loyalty has transferred to digital and, in turn, has given regional media owners a new path to reach new audiences, with data from Local Media Works showing that local media websites attract 97 million unique users each month. This translates into action too - local media is the most effective combination for driving consumer action, according to Consumer Catalyst research.

This is just as relevant to national advertisers as local ones. A powerful example was the recent 'Dinner Down Memory Lane' campaign in the Eastern Daily Press for Marie Curie. Rather than heading out to a fancy restaurant, readers were asked to donate to the charity instead and cook up their favourite dish from years gone by. We shared fantastic photos on our social media channels of everything from cheese fondues to bread and butter pudding, evoking plenty of memories whilst raising over £100,000 for the cause. Editorial features to drive volunteering to this hugely worthwhile organisation made for a beneficial initiative. The return investment we can offer is a scalable, niche proposition that tailors messaging to a relevant audience.

Digital has only enhanced this passion and hasn't changed the need for great stories to be told in the most compelling way. It is this personal connection that national and local brands can tap into - using it to create meaningful engagement, both on a local level and as a scalable national proposition.

In a world where SMEs and local customers are becoming more sophisticated in their marketing strategies, we recently expanded our commercial offering by launching Go Target Display. It's a new targeted display advertising solution for SMEs, opening a wider audience for advertisers. The tool is an efficient and effective mechanism to put brands and their marketing message in front of the most relevant local audience to deliver a truly tangible return for Archant's advertising customers. We wanted to make sure that we had an easy-to-use proposition for our customers that allowed them to benefit from our relationship with our audiences; and GoTarget is proof of adapting to the changing needs of our customers.

We've already seen success with clients such as the University of Suffolk, Bang & Olufsen, and the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association. Our average display advertising click-through rate is a 400% improvement on the national average and a 200% increase on what we saw on our network for untargeted display in 2015. For example, we ran a campaign using GoTarget for Woodland Holiday Park, specifically focused on reaching new prospective customers in geographical areas such as North London and the Home Counties. Holiday bookings increased by 22.4% during the campaign - a testament to the effectiveness of the GoTarget product.

Our offering as a regional media owner has grown to match the needs of both local and national brands. There are opportunities for both to reach a targeted and loyal audience, heightened by a boom in digital and technology. We are also developing further ad tech products later next year to continue to deliver valuable local audiences for advertising customers. We exist to make a difference to communities; and it is this unique environment, alongside the deep audience relationships, that advertisers should look to take advantage of.

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Why Local Media Continues to Grow in Influence for Both Local & National Brands

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According to Local Media Works, local news brands, in print and online, are among the UK's most popular media, reaching 40 million people each month (JICREG, 2015) - that's more than the population of Canada. Yet even with these impressive figures, explains Craig Nayman (pictured below), chief commercial officer,

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Social networking is the Great Equalizer. It enables anyone to gain influence based on the merit of his or her conversations.

Sadly, the quest for sustainable monetization is leading social sites to offer schemes that let people with money buy influence.
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It's a disturbing trend, and I'll tell you exactly why at the end. But first, let's check out some examples.

YouTube Super Chat

YouTube this week enabled a new feature called Super Chat.

Google

YouTube's new Super Chat lets you buy preferential comment placement during live video streams.

It's a pay-to-pin feature, meaning that during live video streams (where comments can come and vanish in an instant) your dollars can fix your comment to the top. You participate by clicking on a dollar sign, then saying how much you want to spend. The more you pay, the longer you stay, for a maximum of five hours. Also: Your comment becomes a different color and can use more characters, so everyone can see that you paid. Channel owners get the money.

Spam, trolling and harassment can be policed and moderated in real time by the video creator, including banning users and blacklisting keywords.

Super Chat is already working on select YouTube channels and in 12 countries. It will be made available for more countries, creators and viewers by the end of the month.

Super Chat replaces Fan Funding, which was just a tip jar for users to contribute to their favorite YouTube personalities.

In other words, YouTube has moved from a system that let people contribute out of a desire to support a personality to one that lets them buy influence that others cannot afford.

Twitter promoted tweets

Twitter can be an enormously influential medium.

President-elect Donald Trump, who won the election in part by influencing the public through Twitter, once tweeted that Twitter is " like owning your own newspaper--- without the losses."

Some people gain influence on Twitter by the quality of their tweets or for other reasons, and most of the biggest users are singers, actors, comedians or professional celebrities, like Kim Kardashian.

But you can also simply buy influence on Twitter.

Your profile page has a "house ad" for influence buying under the label, "Your Tweet activity." When you click on the "View your top Tweets" link, you're taken to a dashboard of your tweets and comments that got the most engagement.

Each tweet or comment has a button labeled "Promote." By clicking on that button, you can choose how much you'd like to spend in exchange for Twitter giving that tweet far more reach and engagement -- and giving you far more influence than your follower count otherwise would give.

Facebook-Boosted posts

The main stream on Facebook for most users is the "News Feed," which is usually by default a tiny subset of the posts from people you follow. You don't see them all. Not even close.

Facebook famously uses algorithms to judge the News Feed-worthiness of posts, then gives you the posts that the algorithm concludes will interest you most.

Reversing that, most of the posts you make on Facebook are not delivered to the News Feeds of your family, friends, colleagues, customers and fans.

But they can be -- for a price. Facebook is happy to sell you advertising. The advertising system even lets you specifically target the objectives of more "Likes" or better engagement -- in other words, more influence.

On Facebook pages, in fact, every single post has a "Boost Post" button for buying influence.

App.net charged admission

An alternative social network called App.net shut down this week. And good riddance.

The social network initially charged admission, essentially making itself a private club for rich people with disposable income that excluded people without.

Wealthy elites loved the site for the same reason that country club members love country clubs; the price of admission keeps out the riff-raff.

Later, App.net softened its monetization policy to a kind of freemium model. But App.net's main benefit was always discrimination based on income.

Should social networks sell influence?

At first glance, the trend toward monetizing social networking by selling influence sounds harmless enough.

YouTube's blog post on Super Chat says the feature is a way for "fans and creators to connect with one another" and enables fans to "get even more of your favorite creator's attention."

That sounds innocent enough. But let's look at YouTube comments in practice.

The reality is that everybody who posts on YouTube, Twitter or Facebook is doing so in order to reach people.

People want to convince people of a point of view. Sometimes that point of view is in opposition to another point of view. With YouTube Super Chat, the point of view backed by money wins. The rich get to be right and win the arguments.

We've already seen trolls buying ads on Twitter. In May 2015, one troll bought a $25 ad on Twitter urging transgender people to commit suicide. YouTube's Super Chat feature may prove attractive for trolls, especially given the low price of admission and especially for misogynists to target women, racists to target minorities and doxxers to target anybody. YouTube is leaving it up to the video creators to police and monitor Super Chat activity, but that can be hard to do when you're focusing on the making of a live video.

The pay for influence schemes simply transform social networks from a sphere where influence is earned through merit, for the most part, to one in which the rich can afford to influence and the poor cannot.

Different groups tend to have different levels of disposable income. Minorities, women, immigrants, young people, single people, rural people all tend to have less money. So in theory, they have less ability to buy influence on some social networks and so as groups have less influence on the national conversation.

The disparity in disposable income is significant within countries, but astronomical between them.

For example, in Australia, the national minimum wage is more than $13 per hour, which means to pay $5 for Super Chat influence priority costs an Australian earning minimum wage less than a half hour of work.

In the East African nation of Tanzania, the national minimum wage is 10 cents an hour, which means a Tanzanian worker at that wage has to work 30 hours to buy $5 dollars worth of influence. At $5, Super Chat influence is, in practice, beyond the reach of most Tanzanians.

The ugly truth about YouTube's Super Chat policy effectively means that Australians can easily buy influence and Tanzanians cannot.

The same goes for influence on Twitter and Facebook.

Is that how social interaction is supposed to work? Should social networks use monetization schemes to privilege already privileged groups and nations?

The right way to monetize social

YouTube's Super Chat is being compared in news reports to Twitch Cheering, which was introduced last summer. ( Twitch is Amazon's live streaming video platform, mostly focused on gaming.)

The Cheering feature enables people to buy what are called "Bits," which can then be added to comments in the form of Bit Emoticons during live video streams. Bit Emoticons are animated and their size, color and shape are determined by the number of "Bits" used to pay for them.

The comparison between YouTube Super Chat and Twitch Cheering is a bad one. The reason? Cheering doesn't boost influence. The messages are treated the same as other messages, and scroll away as quickly as any others.

So Twitch is doing it better than YouTube, monetizing by allowing people who donate to display their donation along with their comment, without favoring that comment and making the commenter have a dominant position over other comments.

The traditional way to monetize both social and content is through advertising, a model that I believe is the most ethical way to monetize online. Advertising is egalitarian because those who cannot afford to buy the advertised products still get the content, interaction and influence free.

The tech site The Information charges a subscription fee to read. But I think that's fair, too, because it's just a product with a price -- readers don't gain an advantage in terms of influence.

I'm really interested in Medium's new direction. The long-form social blogging platform recently laid off staff and announced that its monetization model isn't working. Instead, the company intends to implement a new system where writers are rewarded "based on the value they're creating for people." I don't know what that will mean in practice, but in theory it's the opposite of paying for influence. Medium participants instead should get paid for being influential.

There are many ways to monetize social sites. But I'm disturbed by the trend of selling influence and inequality as part of the business model.

Social networks used to provide a level playing field for admission and influence based on merit. And that's the way it should be.

Let's support the social networks that provide a level playing field for all voices -- not the ones that profit from inequality.

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Social networks let the rich buy influence

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Social networking is the Great Equalizer. It enables anyone to gain influence based on the merit of his or her conversations. Sadly, the quest for sustainable monetization is leading social sites to offer schemes that let people with money buy influence. [To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page.]

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A report coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) concluded that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, ordered a covert campaign to influence the American election in Donald Trump's favor.

A declassified intelligence report detailing the investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 presidential election has been released to the public as of Jan. 6. A report on a collection of unverified memos pertaining to Donald Trump and Russian operatives' close contact was subsequently released on Jan. 10.

According to the New York Times, the Russian teams hacked emails, created an internet 'troll' persona to leak the emails, and spread stories harmful to Hillary Clinton through an international propaganda outlet known as Russia Today (RT) starting in March 2016.

"RT's coverage of Secretary Hillary Clinton throughout the U.S. presidential campaign was consistently negative and focused on her leaked emails and accused her of corruption, poor physical and mental health, and ties to Islamic extremism," the report stated.

The campaign also sought to undermine Americans' faith in democracy and the election process.

"A number of Republicans [continue] not to be too concerned about it as if it's not something we should take seriously," LMU political science professor Liza Taylor said. "Normally, that would be something Republicans would care about, but I think because it's working in the favor of their current president-elect, there's less concern about something that should be completely bipartisan - the fact that any sort of foreign power would be meddling in our election process."

The report notes that the influence of the campaign "represented a significant escalation in directness, level of activity and scope of effort compared to previous operations aimed at U.S. elections."

President-elect Donald Trump was briefed on the evidence in a meeting with the directors of the NSA, CIA and the FBI, during which he described the meeting as "constructive" and stated that the U.S. needed to aggressively combat the cyberattacks.

However, he has also denied that Russian cyberattacks had any effect on the election, according to the L.A. Times. He later added in an interview with the New York Times that the report and focus on Russian influence was a "political witch hunt" by his political opponents.

Although the report did stress its "intellectually rigorous" analysis of information drawn from human and technological sources, it failed to mention exactly how the agencies had collected their data or came to their conclusions, thus leaving it open to attack by allies of Donald Trump.

The report also asserted that the emails taken by Russian intelligence from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were then relayed to Wikileaks' Editor-in-Chief Julien Assange for publishing.

Assange adamantly denies that his sources for information were from a member of any government or state parties. He went on to say that the intelligence report "did not have the structure of an intelligence report. It uses speculative terms and admits its own speculation..." and was "clearly designed for political effect."

However, it was reported that RT's editor-in-chief visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2013 to discuss his contract with RT, as well as Russian media announcing that RT was the only Russian media company to partner with Wikileaks.

An additional report discussed by the N.Y. Times, CNN and Buzzfeed News on Jan. 10 alleges that Trump and his aides have been in contact with Russian operatives for years and that Russia has compromising and graphic material on the President-elect from his time in Russia. This report -- a collection of unverified memos by political operatives - was compiled by someone who claimed to be a former British intelligence officer and was presented to President Obama and the President-elect.

According to the N.Y. Times, the British intelligence officer put the report together for a Washington political and corporate research firm sponsored by supporters of Clinton. The report goes on to suggest that Putin has aimed for years to influence Trump, who has traveled repeatedly to Moscow but has never completed any major business deals in Russia.

Trump vehemently denied the allegations in a Tweet that read, "FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!" Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, denied the report in an interview with Mic.

According to the N.Y. Times, both of the reports conclude that there was no evidence of foreign tampering with the tallying of the votes on Nov. 8.

"We need to find a way to make sure it doesn't happen in the future," Taylor said. "But that's not going to be easy. A lot of what they were doing was sending out fake stories as well, which is a problem that's not just Russia; we have people doing that here."

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A report coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) concluded that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, ordered a covert campaign to influence the American election in Donald Trump's favor.