Messages through Social Media?

I often find myself wondering where the world would be at right now without the Internet and Social Media? Would World Leaders still be waiting for information to be decrypted through decryption specialist or would they be waiting for that one important phone call? Social Media has become a tool for, not just citizens, but even groups and organizations to use in order to be able to communicate with the rest of the world. Even now social media is used to communicate with activist groups so they can know what is happening right now, in-ragards to the change they are fighting for. Social Media is also used to communicate with leaders. As it is mentioned in "Millennials & Activism," "According to some observers, the Internet may have considerable potential to reach and engage opinion leaders who influence the thinking and behavior of others." (Logothetis) 

In the recent news their has been another video posted by ISIS stating that they have killed Steven Sotloff. As New York Times authors, Mark Landler and Eric Schmitt wrote;

WASHINGTON — An Islamic militant group released a video on Tuesday showing the second beheading of an American hostage in two weeks and blamed President Obama for the killing. The video raised the pressure on the president to order military strikes on the group in its sanctuary in Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/middleeast/steven-sotloff-isis-execution.html?_r=1

The online article shows how even groups from all over the world can use social media to get their message out to other countries and their world leaders. ISIS used social media in order to deliver their messages to President Obama and the world on what they wanted. 

This relates to our studies on how social media such as videos posted on the web can be used to communicate with people all over the world. I believe that social media can be used to help the public sphere develop their own opinions based on what they are able to obtain through the media and conversations on social media. They can share their views and opinions on the political side and use online sources to get petitions signed. On the other hand, social media can be a very dangerous tool, as we see in the link above. Social media can be used to send messages and cause unrest within a society towards their government or other organizations. 

As we can see from the news article the video has done a lot of harm around the world, from all the articles written about the video, because it was broadcasted on social media for everyone to see even though the government is trying to block people from viewing the video. Here is a question that I have for the class. Do you feel like social media is more harmful to the government in today's society or more helpful in today's society? Why?