Social Media and Security Challenges: The Relationship between Security Messaging, Believability and Social Alarm


Keyword : Social .Media Security .New Media .Participatory .Mediature .Alarm


Author(s) : Damian Amana & Chris Attah

Abstract :   

This paper is premised on the fourth McLuhanian law of the media-the theory of the over-heated medium-to examine the dialogic relationship between social media, social security and social alarm. While some scholars suggest that the social media's influence is negative, others perceive only the positive aspect but this paper posits that social media's impact on society is at once positive and negative. From such an inclusive judgment of the effect of social media on society, the paper proceeds to examine the dialogic relationship between social media, security and social alarm. From a purposive audience survey, the paper adduces that while social media has been used by many for security information and planning even to the creation of perpetual social alarm, the participative nature of social media makes it equally prone to absurd exaggeration even with issues serious as security. By the promotion of the true and untrue, the serious and unserious, the factual and the fictitious, social media promotes beliefs in its medium itself and siphons beliefs in its medium so that the message of social media demands high selective believability and the strong regulation with
regard to the creation and consumption of social media security messaging.

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