Mr Splashy Pants

Image 1: Save Mr Splashy Pants (Greenpeace, 2007)

‘What is interesting is the power and the impact of social media… So we must try to use social media in a good way’ (Malala Yousafzai, n.d) Over the course of week two, in our lectures and our readings, we have come to understand the concept of power and how ‘power is a networked space of relations’ (Gaventa, 2003, p.2)

For my assessment over the next few weeks I have chosen the social media and social news aggregation, Reddit. It allows users to submit content, for example a news article, to Reddit and a community of peers votes up or down depending on their like or dislike of the content. As an avid user of Reddit for nearly 4 years I have observed the power this social network holds. In 2008, Mr Splashy Pants, a Greenpeace anti-Japanese whaling operation campaign became a node within Reddit. CEO of Reddit Alexis Ohanian over on TED.com talked about how this node created links throughout the web on sites like Boing Boing, Facebook, Twitter, and even in real world network places such as workplaces and Universities.

Sociologist Max Weber theorised that charismatic power is power legitimized by abilities that inspire devotion. Applying this theory of charismatic power to how Redditors, users of Reddit, were inspired by Mr Splashy Pants as they became devoted to the cause behind it. Alongside Max Weber theory of charismatic power we can refer to Allen’s readings on how social interactions and power have a relation. (Allen, 2003, p.2)

Redditors socially interact with one another through the up voting and down voting of shared content. Through this system it is observable the power that each Redditor holds and what they can do with this resources, sharing information, promoting new ideas, or even just creating new networks between people. It really makes you think what does the future hold for social networks.

References
Save Mr Splashy Pants [Image]. 2016. Retrieved from http://www.kidzworld.com/article/9901-whale-naming-competition-mister-splashy-pants

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (2016). Max Weber | German sociologist. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Weber-German-sociologist

Kuttainen, V. (2016). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, lecture 2: Power. [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

Allen, J. (2003). Lost geographies of power. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

2015, G. (2015). Who’s mister splashy pants? Retrieved August 12, 2016, fromhttp://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/fit-for-the-future/whaling/mister-splashy-pants/

Reddit (2016). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit

Ohanian, A. (2009, December 15). How to make a splash in social media Retrieved fromhttp://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media?language=en

BrainyQuote, 2016. (2001). Malala Yousafzai quotes at BrainyQuote.Com. Retrieved August 12, 2016, from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/malalayous662501.html