I was enjoying one of my favorite news broadcasts, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer tonight and I found one of their stories extremely interesting. They were reporting on how many in Iran are using various social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, to report what was happening in their country after the elections last week. Apparently, the internet in Iran has slowed to a crawl and many of these social networking sites have been blocked by the government. The News Hour had two guests on the program to talk about what is happening in Iran and both of them talked about the importance of these sites in organizing rallies for the opposition leader and for getting information about what was happening in the nation out to the world.
I really found all of this every interesting because most people, myself included, only see social networking sites as fun and a way to waste some time, but they really can be used for the greater good. I was shocked at how even the hard liners in Iran were using these sites to help promote their agenda. They even went so far as to dress up like the opposition to create videos that they then were posting on Facebook and Youtube.
These sites are really becoming the future for all of us and everyone should know at least something about them. I think that in the future, these sites will play a very large role in library outreach. I hope that I am able to keep up with the times so that I will be able to use what I know one day in a job.
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